Cher: Firing Squad for Governor Over Flint Water Crisis

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LANSING, MI – Music superstar Cher went on a Twitter rage against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder Tuesday night, calling for Snyder to be jailed and to face a firing squad in connection with the Flint water crisis that exposed citizens to high levels of lead that may cause irreversible brain damage in children.

The tweets came hours after Snyder declared an emergency in Flint and the Justice Department said it was investigating the contamination of the city’s water supply. Flint switched from water from Lake Huron to the Flint River in 2014 to deal with its financial emergency, action that resulted in a spike in lead levels.

In one tweet, Cher called the governor a murderer and included the hashtag #JAILFORRICK. In another, she railed against power, greed and incompetent politicians, declaring in a hashtag #FIRINGSQUADWORKSFORME.

Here are the tweets:

A preliminary report by Snyder’s Flint Water Advisory Task Force said the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality was primarily responsible for the state’s failure to deal with the crisis sooner, and last week, Snyder accepted the resignation of DEQ Director Dan Wyant.

“It’s unfortunate that someone would use such rhetoric at a time when the governor is working so closely with Flint’s leaders on coordinated efforts to protect the health and welfare of people in the city and across our state.”

Cher’s tweets have gotten plenty of play. On Wednesday morning, one had been retweeted 251 times, and the other 375 times. Together, they garnered more than 1,575 “favorites.” Cher has 2.93 million followers.

The Flint water crisis has received global attention in the media. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and others have all covered the crisis.

Newsweek said the crisis is “one of the nastiest cases of toxic discharge in 2015” and said that parents in the city “can look forward to a 2016 living in fear for their children’s brain development after learning their water is full of too much lead.”

Related

• Pediatrician Exposed Crisis of Lead in Flint Water
• State Delayed Action on Lead in Flint Water
• DEQ Director Resigns Over Flint Water Crisis
• Justice Department Looking at Flint Water Crisis
• Governor Declares Emergency in Flint Water Crisis

TIME said the problem isn’t just isolated to Flint as the nation’s infrastructure ages. in an op-ed, Nancy Loeb, an assistant clinical professor of law and the director of the Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Northwestern University Law School’s Bluhm Legal, warned:

“ … millions of people in the U.S. are still getting water from old lead pipes. Until those pipes are replaced, the lead hazard will remain.”

» Photo by Renan Katayama via Flickr / Creative Commons